Knicks Morning News (2014.04.08)

Former Knicks coach Larry Brown believes Mike Woodson hasn’t been “treated fairly” by the organization this season, adding that Phil Jackson should have taken over as coach to allow the lame-duck Woodson to leave the team “graciously.”

With only four games remaining in which to sell the product to the unwashed masses, there is this commercial on the radio home of the Knicks where a voice proclaims: ‘The Knicks have taken us on a journey we won’t soon forget.’ This is true.

50 comments on “Knicks Morning News (2014.04.08)”

If Melo is willing to take a pay cut that enables the Knicks to pick up talent, you probably need to consider signing him.
But I think the Knicks would be far better off signing and trading him out west and getting back some players and draft picks.
The Knicks need to get a young, talented point guard by trade or draft, and they need to make sure Toury gets lots and lots of touches in the summer league. Run his ass off with the team.
But they need draft picks most of all, and Melo can get them those.
I just don’t think he is a leader, as well as he has played this year. His stupid decision to open the season saying he would test free agency spun this team out.
He has played tough, but quite clearly he is not the level of star that can carry a team. He finishes games horribly, tends to choke with the ball in big moments, and just hasn’t delivered.
And the team dynamic is shot.
But if this team reports next year with Ray Felton as the No.1 guard, I’m done until the 2015-2016 season.
We have the worst coach and worse starting point in the game.

ESPN has developed some new +/- metric they’re calling Real Plus-Minus. Fortunately, we can discount it out of hand because it says that Tyson is the most effective player on the Knicks and that Melo is not a top 10 player. LOL.

The closing games argument doesn’t mean too much to me since I think Melo’s been great in that aspect for the entirety of his career prior to this season. Ultimately he needs to be more of a team player in those situations, but having a coach that will run a fucking play in that situation in which Melo isn’t the primary, secondary and tertiary option would help as would playing with intelligent guards.

I don’t know how I feel in the keep Melo vs. trade him debate, because until we actually have a proposal on the table from another team or he commits to a contract in New York it’s very hard to say. Finding a star to build around is the toughest part of creating a championship team and while there are times when I think Melo is absolutely not a player you can build around he has demonstrated that there are stretches where he can.

I think ideally 5 yrs, $90m would be a great contract for us to legitimately have some space to put enough talent around Melo to compete. I would go max of 5yrs, $100m, but anything more than that then I think trading him is the smart play.

You can’t do sign and trades, though, because he will not go to any other team that could give the Knicks any valuable assets. Only perhaps Chicago. He is not taking a deal to end up in Phoenix or Philly or OKC or DC or anything like that. He’ll play in L.A. or New York or Miami or maybe Chicago. He wants to win a championship very much, and I bet that the upcoming “lost” season of 2014-15 is absolutely killing him, but at the same token, it is not killing him enough to want to win on anything but his own terms. And his own terms include winning a championship in a big market. If Los Angeles, Brooklyn or Miami were legitimate threats then I would be concerned about losing Melo. None of them are, though. So he will be a Knick. It’s just a question of what he will agree to sign to.

Seriously advanced stats are legitimately useful and great, but if you’re developing a metric and it tells you Chandler was a better player than Melo this season than it needs a tweak. According to RPM Chandler was the 28th best player in the league which is really pretty funny, while Melo was 52nd.

I’m assuming that playing the highest minutes load in the league on one of the worse teams in the league with one of the worst coaches in the league, surrounded by maybe the worst set of guards in the league hurts Melo a lot in this metric. Being the primary shot creator and last resort on offense when everything else breaks down probably hurts him as well. All the guys I listed are good players that have value, but their role isn’t even comparable to what Melo is being asked to do.

Melo is the 8th ranked SF according to RPM behind (in order) Lebron, Iguodala, Durant, Demarre Carroll, Barnes, Pierce and Dunleavy. Lebron and Durant are the only 2 guys on that list that would have improved the Knicks this season given Melo’s minutes and role. Iguodala would have been close to a wash, but maybe slightly worse. Everybody else would have guaranteed us less than 28 wins.

Seriously advanced stats are legitimately useful and great, but if you’re developing a metric and it tells you Chandler was a better player than Melo this season than it needs a tweak. According to RPM Chandler was the 28th best player in the league which is really pretty funny, while Melo was 52nd.

Yes and no. I could believe that Tyson’s more effective than Melo on a per-minute basis. The harping this season about his lack of effort and desire is way overblown, in my opinion. Tyson is one of two guys on the team who plays effective defense. But Melo’s been very good this year, and has obviously been much more durable than Tyson. ESPN doesn’t explain how they calculate their new baby, but it’s possible that Carmelo comes off worse than Tyson because he had to play a lot more minutes with the great Bargnani while Tyson’s leg was healing. And you also have to consider that Carmelo has been consistently run into the ground by our moron of a coach. Statistical models don’t know Woody.

Yes, that stat is a joke. I think we’re hitting a ceiling regarding advanced stats based only on naked numbers. It’s pretty obvious that some guys are going to shine no matter the stat (LeBron, Durant, Harden, other super freaks), but them being in the top spots of that statistic standings does not validate the line of reasoning which brought us the aforementioned stat.
I’m kinda tired of those geniuses (who are really geniuses, but maybe need to make the next step and understand that we still have to unearth many many discoveries with SportsVU and similars) who churn out those meaningless stats just to prove a single point the general public has no interest in. Do you remember the morbid fascination Berri had with our beloved Landry Fields?

I think there is just a valid point, to my eyes, to RPM: it seems to indicate which players understand better their limitations and make the most out of it. In that sense, that Chandler is ahead of everyone else in a Knicks uniform is quite right (sadly, it’s pretty evident that RPM doesn’t measure effort). Still, I don’t know how is it possibile that this is the next chapter of Moreyball, when everybody and their mom already knows the value of a good pro even if it doesn’t score many points or blocks many shots (and on the other side, don’t tell me Moreyball executives are prone to overpay guys like Chris Andersen or DeMarre Carroll; I want to see the agent of Amir go to Masai Ujiri and demand a raise because he’s in the top 15 in RPM. Come on). If that’s the next big thing, I’m Santa Claus.

The irony of advanced stats is that they have to pass the Lebron test.
What we all know to be true is that the Lebron is the best player in the NBA. Some may make an argument for second best. We know this simply by watching the games. No stat sheet necessary.

For any new advanced stat to have incredibility, Lebron and Durant have to be ranked at the top for it to make sense. And that’s the irony – the advanced stat (that many cite as gospel) has to conform to visual opinion to be credible.

I looked at the only ESPN article on RPM that’s available to non-insiders. I couldn’t tell if the stat is per minute or not. It sounds like not. That’s a serious flaw (but probably won’t help Melo). What does really hurt Melo’s stat is that Melo plays for a really horrible team. When your team loses a lot of games and some are blowouts, there’s a lot of minus to distribute among players. Carmelo’s on the floor a lot, so a lot of the Knick’s minuses get put on him. I bet if you graphed RPM against team winning percentages you would find a big correlation. Then all this stat would mean is that players on losing teams must be lousy and players on winning teams must be good.

Every iteration of plus minus I’ve ever seen is useless on it’s own and always misinterpreted.

Tyson Chandler should rank ahead of Melo in plus minus. And ranking ahead of Melo in plus minus in no way means that you were a superior player.

Melo has played 81% of the minutes for one of the worst teams in the NBA. Tyson has played 44%. Of course Tyson ranks higher. Nick Collison and Chris Anderson play on great teams. Of course they rank much higher than Melo.

He is not taking a deal to end up in Phoenix or Philly or OKC or DC or anything like that. He’ll play in L.A. or New York or Miami or maybe Chicago. He wants to win…a championship in a big market. If Los Angeles, Brooklyn or Miami were legitimate threats then I would be concerned about losing Melo. None of them are, though. So he will be a Knick. It’s just a question of what he will agree to sign to.

See, this is what I don’t understand about Carmelo Anthony more than anything else. This isn’t the 20th Century anymore. The concept of “big markets” and “small markets” doesn’t mean as much as it used to, considering the growing global economy. Sure, there are more people in the “New York market” than anywhere else in the country, but it’s not like he can take a piece of that market. He doesn’t pocket the ticket receipts, or the cable contracts, or the merchandising revenue. He’s just an employee, and the amount of any market he can obtain for himself is capped by the CBA.

I understand NBA players not wanting to play in Salt Lake City because of legitimate cultural differences. But to discount cities like Phoenix, Washington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Portland because of the sizes of their populations is self-defeatist. LeBron was able to see this. He had offers from NY (#1), LA (#2), and Chicago (#3), but chose to go to Miami (#8) because it presented the clearest path to a championship.

And while Phoenix seems to present the best match for him in roster construction, the idea that he’d refuse an offer from Washington strikes me as even stranger. Not only is it the #6 biggest city, but the Wizards also absorb the Baltimore marketplace, making it the #2 non-shared NBA market in the country (behind only Chicago). Considering Baltimore is his home town, and they have a burgeoning young core, dismissing them because of relative size or geography seems hopelessly self-defeatist.

I think “big market” is misused. NBA players want to live in appealing locales. If you’re going to make the same money no matter where you go, you might as well have the highest quality of life possible.

And in that regard, Miami is a “big market” team. LA, Miami, NY, and Houston will always be attractive to stars not because the size of the television market (though that definitely matters to Mrs. Carmelo Anthony) but because they are destination NBA cities. Chicago and Boston have had a lot of trouble attracting free agents, despite being huge markets, because they just aren’t very appealing places to a lot of young, rich, athletes who want to live it up.

If the league ever expanded to Las Vegas, they’d probably become a top 5 “market”, too!

Maybe its just me but i do not understand this boards obsession with “carrying a team” That is not a successful model. Not Lebron, Not KD were able to in the playoffs. So Melo is supposed to?

When I mean carry a team, I’m more referencing a winning record, not necessarily a championship.
He’s done it once for the Knicks, and his shooting percentage in game winning situations is abysmal, as has been documented by several people on this site before.

In Lebron career with Cleveland, only his first year did that team have a losing record in the games he played. Pretty impressive, given the level of player on Cleveland during that time.

Miami may have offered Lebron the easiest path to a championship, but it also definitely offered him a path to party in Miami, which is a lot more fun than partying in Phoenix.

That’s my point. If you’re a 30 year old in 2014, and you’re making basketball decisions based on nightlife, you’re probably not championship material. You only work 6 months out of the year, and there are private jets to take you anywhere you need to go if there’s something cooler happening in somebody else’s back yard.

If cold weather makes your arthritic knees act us, then I understand wanting to play in Florida or Southern California. That is a basketball decision dictated by environment. But limiting yourself to three cities just because they are “big” is not a sound decision. Mitch Richmond was interviewed yesterday in the wake of his election into the Hall of Fame. He said his induction meant a lot to him because his career was so miserable. Richmond played 12 seasons and finished over .500 once. Anthony is Richmond-esque in many ways– he’s a great scorer; he’s always the best player on his team; and he has little to show for it in terms of career playoff wins.

Young guys on their first contract wanting to live it up in Miami or Los Angeles I understand. But Anthony seems like he should be beyond that at this point in his career. As he should have noticed by now, it’s a lot cooler to win in a small town than to lose in a big one.

.500 once. Anthony is Richmond-esque in many ways– he’s a great scorer; he’s always the best player on his team; and he has little to show for it in terms of career playoff wins.

Id Say melo is more like Nique. As in my previous comment i noted that hes never finished .500 or worse before this year. Also, how does everyone know where melo wanted to play and that Phx is not an option? I also thought his top choices were chi , ny or LA. Chi is the best “one piece away” team in the league. How is that not a commitment to win.

Come on now, these guys are human beings, they have interests and desires that go beyond basketball. LeBron may simply enjoy the lifestyle presented by Miami better than that of Chicago. Why is that so hard to understand? We often want players to go to NYC because it’s NYC dammit, but it’s not cool if somebody prefers Los Angeles?

He would have won championships in half the cities in the league, he’s fucking LeBron James.

So what’s the consensus on this forum, would the Knicks be better off working a sign and trade for “reasonable return” or re signing Melo and hoping the the draw of playing in N.Y. with a Jackson/Melo led team will be enough to bring in significant free agents in 2015?

If you let him go or work out a sign and trade, who are you hoping to get in return?
Besides a better than average pg, what type of players do the Knicks need to be a serious contender. If those players are available this summer or next, please name names!

In 2015, assuming Bargs, Tyson (not worth anywhere near what he is paid if this season’s play is a real indication of where his game is) and Amare (I’d try to resign him at a vastly reduced rate) are gone and Felton is untradeable, who do you want Phil to sign and how do they fit in with Melo (if he’s still here)?

He would have won championships in half the cities in the league, he’s fucking LeBron James

But he didn’t go to Miami to play with Mario Chalmers and Joel Anthony. He went to play with Wade and Bosh and to win championships. The fact that there is a nightlife there is a fringe benefit. LeBron specifically eschewed the bigger markets. Chicago and NY would have allowed him to play with Wade or Bosh but not both. He chose the destination that he thought would provide the most wins, not the most fun social scene.

NBA players need to live in the city they play in from mid-October until Mid-June at the very longest. And half of that time is spent in other cities. Teams don’t travel by stagecoach or via the B&O Railroad. Airplanes cross the country hundreds of times each day. Private ones can deliver you anywhere you need in a matter of hours. If you’ve played 30,000 minutes in the NBA and you state that “winning is the most important thing”, then you have got to be beyond the “lifestyle” component of where you work.

You guys are forgetting about LaLa, I highly doubt she’d be on board with a move to Phoenix or Washington.

This is probably true, but a) as explained above, they wouldn’t have to move for him to play in Washington; and b) if the size of Lala’s TV market dictates where he wants to play, then winning simply isn’t the most important thing. It’s just a thing. Which is fine. It’s just not exactly what champions are made of. (I actually respect Anthony a lot if this is the case: “champions” tend to be very successful in one aspect of life and woefully poor at the others. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, etc… These guys had unsuccessful marriages– an issue Anthony has thus far avoided (and though their marriage hasn’t been long, they have been together for about a decade now I think, so that is significant.)

Ted, what do you expect Melo to say? Almost nobody says “I want to get cash in large amounts” or “I want to party on yachts with models on the reg”. If winning is the most important thing for Melo, he’s gone. Which is not the worst thing that can happen. But guys like Melo don’t give candid interviews anymore. Melo’s not a guy who plays basketball when he sits down for an interview-he’s the spokesman for a brand.

Funny part is the Hawks after hosting the Celtics tomorrow their next 2 games is a back-to-back at Brooklyn then home vs the Heat. If the Knicks win their next 2 games they probably will be tied with the Hawks with 2 games to go. Cant believe Im back to thinking about this crap lol.

Essentially, it comes down to this. If the Knicks finish 4-0 and the Hawks finish 2-3, the Knicks are in. The “tragic” number is three, so any combination of Hawks victories and Knicks losses that adds up to three eliminates the Knicks. The Hawks had a chance to eliminate the Knicks just by beating shitty teams (Milwaukee, Boston and Detroit) but they failed to do so. Like I said the other day – never underestimate the Hawks’ capacity to lose to shitty teams.

This thing isn’t over yet. The fat lady is warming up her vocal cords, but she isn’t singing yet!

I honestly have no idea how the Knicks will finish. We know they suck so its easy to assume they will not win the 3 or 4 games they need to win to make the playoffs but still they have won 12 of their last 17 games. I know their last 4 games are vs playoff teams but the Knicks have recently beaten the Pacers, Warriors and blew the crap out of the Nets so its not like all 12 of their recent wins have been vs cupcakes.

I will not be surprised at all if they win all 4 or lose all 4. The interesting thing will be to see who plays for the Raptors, Bulls and Nets when they play the Knicks. Lowry and Amir Johnson have been out recently for the Raptors, the Nets constantly rest players. The Bulls never do so thats the game I dont see the Knicks getting a “break” in terms of the other teams resting some players.

The perfect Knicks ending would be going into the final day of the season up 1 game and losing at home to a Raptors team resting all their starters while the Hawks win in Milwaukee to get the 8th seed. Or they go into the final day tied and both the Knicks and Hawks lose giving the Hawks the 8th seed. That would definitely be the best Knicks ending to the season.